Spatial Argumentation Practices: (Re)imagining Curriculum to Restore Hope and Healing for Black Children

This constructed grounded theory study (Charmaz, 2006) explores curriculum design, teaching, and learning with spatial data to improve teachers' planning and instructional practices through the meaningful development of spatial argumentation practices as an intervention-based social studies unit. Spatial argumentation practices (SAPs) investigate teachers' and students' meaning-making of spatial data as they learn to identify the embedded connotations of material spaces via maps and other spatial representations, deconstruct them, and express their subjugated knowledge about places. This study used a social design-based method (Gutiérrez & Vossoughi, 2010; Gutiérrez & Jurrow, 2016; Jurow & Shea, 2015). The findings indicate that planning for spatial argumentation practices added a decolonial lens to curriculum development, improved the culture and climate in the classroom, and increased self-reflective planning practices to de-center Whiteness. Teachers used inquiry-based instructional strategies during SAPs lessons. In addition, their epistemic experiences influenced their interpretation of teaching and spatial productions. Within the SAPs curriculum, race heavily impacted students' understanding of space and exhibited their trauma when learning. SAPs facilitated Black middle school students (re)imagining space and (re)claiming their academic identities as a means of activism to promote well-being. Future implications for this study provide insight into developing a spatial argumentation practice curriculum that offers professional development around intentionally promoting hope and healing (Ginwright, 2015) for Black students and providing anti-racist pedagogy for educators. This study adds to the literature on guiding research partnerships toward equitable learning opportunities for Black middle school students and possibilities for creating a more just society.